Well after 14 months of running Osram Nightbreakers I have finally had enough.

In that time frame I have progressed to running dipped beam bulbs numbers 5 and 6!!!

Had it not been for the fact Osram have an incredibly helpful (and generous) customer service department I'd have called it a day long ago.

Having initially fitted them in November of 2008 I was immediately impressed with the extra light and field of vision over the standard fit Philips.

However come March when the first bulb blew I was not so impressed. I was expecting a short life but not that short!

Having seen posts here about contacting Osram direct about short bulb life that's exactly what I did and they were good enough to take the bulb back investigate, admit the bulb had failed prematurely and send me a pair of replacements! Result!

Come July when the next bulb blew I was still not really happy that a bulb should only last 9-10 months but a lot of those months had been winter meaning they were used a couple of hours a day commuting 5 days a weenk and i had free replacements so i'll take this one on the chin.

October and another bulb goes pop - as it had either lasted 7 or just 3 (summer) months this time I went back to Osram.

The reponse was less friendly this time and informed me that "due to the way the bulb had failed it appeared that it had been running at an incorrect voltage which is why is ceased function"

Hmmm I pondered that one and went back explaining that my vehicle had no electrical modifications and had been running Nightbreakers for almost 12 months prior to this bulb stopping working so can't see that being a problem - A single replacement bulb arrived a few days later.

This 3rd replacement bulb has now had to be fitted following yet another failure (7 or 4 month duration)

I will attempt to get another replacement out of Osram but I feel I might be pushing my luck and their patience may wear thin and i'll be sent packing.

In the mean time I have ordered a couple Philips X-Treme that shall be fitted when the next bulb goes kaput; and i hope they serve me better!!

Have a look at the new halfords ones:

http://www.halfords.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/product_storeId_10001_catalogId_10151_productId_491435_langId_-1_categoryId_205263

I have had them for a couple of months now, they are impressive, good light definition and nice crisp white, a bit pricey at £24.99 a side but they are currently on BOGOF.

I'll be completely honest.. I've never been completely convinced by the idea of getting more light output from the same wattage bulb. Usually involves a thinner element which burns brighter and using different gas to keep it under control.

I've always used bulbs like Sportz Blue. Sound a bit of a stupid name and sound like they're marketed for chavs, but they're a higher wattage blue tinted bulb. Resulting in brighter white emitted light, but because it's a higher wattage bulb reliability is excellent.. Never had one go yet in the 3 years i've ran them (albeit in different cars). Higher wattage means they're not squeezing the most they can out of a lower wattage bulb..

For high beams i've used rally sport or something they're called rally sport or something.. The high beams i have are 130w.

Kev

I'm running Halfords aswell, but not the extremes, just the supers.

Brighter than the stock jobbies and lasted me 2 years in the last Fabia.

I'm always a bit suspicious of Halfords own brand.. but actually, they keep coming up trumps TBH. I have a tyre inflater from them which is fantastic, full auto and rugged.

I also have a little 12v buffer which is fantastic when waxing, and seems like it'd be ok for polishing but obviously it's no good for correction.

Now contemplating buying their interior steam cleaner, it's only £30 and if my recent purchases are anything to go buy it'll be pretty good!

Just had a Night breaker (h7 dipped beam) fail on me, and I think it was only 2 or 3 months since I fitted it (didn't touch the bulb when fitting bla bla bla).

Not impressed, so I've now just bought a replacement set of Phillips X-treme power. fingers crossed they last longer

I found phillips Xtreme last much longer when compared to the night brakers.

Matt

I found phillips Xtreme last much longer when compared to the night brakers.

Matt

omg, so that means that I shall be expecting the x-tremes to blow out too!?!

I agree, the Philips bulbs last much longer that the Nightbreakers.

Just had to replace the first Xtreme in SWMBOs Furby. can't remember when I fitted it so it must be quite a while ago

Definitely over 12 months (think that I was getting less than 6 months with the Osrams).

Worth noting that you can get them from Powerbulbs Ebay shop for a lot less than you can on their website. Think I just paid £20 including delivery for a pair of H7s.

I have Philips Blue Vision fitted to mine, and 2 weeks ago the passenger side blew after 5 months. Place where I bought them from swapped the faulty bulb for a new one.

Try a place called Aceparts, they have a shop on ebay. A full set (dipped, main, sidelight and front fog) can be had for £15 ish. They have xenon gas in them, are direct replacement bulbs and are road legal. I've had them in my furby for well over a year with only the sidelights requiring replacement. Very bright and very clear. The staff are really helpful too. I'd certainly recommend them.

Worth noting that you can get them from Powerbulbs Ebay shop for a lot less than you can on their website. Think I just paid £20 including delivery for a pair of H7s.

Did the ones from e-bay come with free sidelight bulbs? What are they called, I've found "Powerbulbs Direct" is that them or someone else?

I noticed on Powerbulbs website the X-treams are £27.85 and Nightbreakers are only £19.19, and these will come with sidelights. I am not sure if they have changed the prices since the VAT increase. I am temped with X-treams as I've got Philips Vision Plus (+50%) at the moment.

Edited 18 January, 201016 yr by Jim H

Have a look at the new halfords ones:

http://www.halfords.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/product_storeId_10001_catalogId_10151_productId_491435_langId_-1_categoryId_205263

I have had them for a couple of months now, they are impressive, good light definition and nice crisp white, a bit pricey at £24.99 a side but they are currently on BOGOF.

I also use the Halfords Extreme bulbs, I found a massive improvements over the standard philips H7 bulb, I too bought them at the BOGOF price, kept the Philips as spares, I find myself cleaning the headlights more to appreciate the brighter bulbs!

I've not touched the lights in the vRS yet (was lucky - came with xenons), but in the past I've bought car bulbs from Consumablubs. Always good service, and they are good at replacing blown bulbs when necessary:

http://www.consumabulbs.com/index.php

Paul.

Did the ones from e-bay come with free sidelight bulbs? What are they called, I've found "Powerbulbs Direct" is that them or someone else?

I noticed on Powerbulbs website the X-treams are £27.85 and Nightbreakers are only £19.19, and these will come with sidelights. I am not sure if they have changed the prices since the VAT increase. I am temped with X-treams as I've got Philips Vision Plus (+50%) at the moment.

Powerbulbs Direct is where they came from and no, they don't include the free sidelight bulbs, but as I already have some of those it was no great loss and the £8 saving was more important

As said many times before in previous posts, the art of bulb designing, allows for either low cost with normal output and average life, or any combination or "improved" cost or output or life with a drop off in the other two "features". So, I'd still expect the Philips extremes to last a shorter life than standard Philips Premium - BTW I am now using Extremes, have had their previous lesser "best" bulbs with lives of 2.5 years followed by 4 years on the next evolution of best Philips - so things are improving, but its its still worth while for the improved light output. I suppose its finding an cost/output/life balance that suits the buyer/user.

I fitted a pair of H7 Philips X-treme Power +80% bulbs in February 2009. Both failed simultaneously in December 2009 after only 10months.

I'm pretty suspicious of the electrics in the fabia (and vw cars in general). I have gone through far too many bulbs in the Fabia - 4+ dip beam, 1 main beam, 2 number plate bulbs, 2 front side lights, 3-4 brake lights, etc. You also see lots of golfs on the road with blown rear brake lights or side lights.

The dash lights in my vrs are fairly temperamental. They frequently changing brightness independent of the adjuster and the adjuster sometimes doesn't work linearly.

To me for 2 bulbs to fail simultaneously points towards a car issue - i'm not going to be spending too much on bulbs in the future as they seem fairly disposable in the vrs.

The light that burns twice as bright burns half as long. End of. Other than running higher-wattage lamps as suggested by Jabba (although potentially grounds for an MoT fail), there is ultimately no way past this.

FWIW, I have no problems driving through Snowdonia in the dark to get to work using standard lights. So in terms of actually being able to see and be seen clearly, I don't believe there is any need to improve the performance of the headlights. If you want brighter lamps purely for show, then I guess 'practicality' and 'longevity' aren't going to come into the equation...

Glad to know i'm not the only one who has suffered at the hands of short life Nightbreakers.

As stated in my initial post i understand that more light = more heat = less life but i think the Nightbreaker experience has pushed that compromise a little far for my liking.

I did consider the high wattage bulbs when i was browsing the powerbulbs site but the sight of "Not legal for road use in the UK" did put me off somewhat.

Buying the car second hand i don;t know what bulbs were in the car when I got it but they were dreadful. Upgrades were purely to get as much light as possible for safest communting for my other half. Appearance never occured to me - otherwise I would have bought some wicked and bad blue tinted xenon look bulbs and some phat LED's and neons innit!

Hopefully given the thoughts above the Philips should last longer but should they too have a short lifespan i'll move further down the performance v life length chart

Hopefully given the thoughts above the Philips should last longer but should they too have a short lifespan i'll move further down the performance v life length chart

To be fair, if there are brighter lamps out there that members can show from experience to last an acceptable amount of time, then I guess it's purely down to what you're prepared to pay. At the risk of taching you to suck eggs once again, though, are you (and anyone else suffering from them going on a regualr basis) wearing gloves or using a cloth to hold the lamp while you're installing it?

... to last an acceptable amount of time.

I think that's the key.

Had the first bulbs lasted 10 months I would have (possibly) been fine with that chalked it up to experience and spent less on longer lasting replacements.

Had Osram also not offered a 12 month warranty, investigatation into why the bulbs fail and offer replacements I would have been more willing to accept it and keep schtum.

And yes when the bulbs are fitted any contact with the glass is done with a cloth, until it's safe to remove and slot into place holding the metal base with bare finger tips...

...all the while attempting to suck an egg through a straw - that is how you're supposed to do it??

Edited 19 January, 201016 yr by PastyBoy

Have a look at the new halfords ones:

http://www.halfords.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/product_storeId_10001_catalogId_10151_productId_491435_langId_-1_categoryId_205263

I have had them for a couple of months now, they are impressive, good light definition and nice crisp white, a bit pricey at £24.99 a side but they are currently on BOGOF.

I use these Halfords ones in my Octy, they do fail quicker than standard bulbs. I am on my second set, the first ones lasted 18 months before the first one failed. Buy 2 and they effectivley cost £12 each. They give a much brighter and whiter light than the standard bulbs, and seem ok to me.

...all the while attempting to suck an egg through a straw - that is how you're supposed to do it??

I've tried lots of makes of uprated bulbs and found all had short lives. Driving mostly in the dark - about 4 hours a day 5 days a week, none lasted more than 6 months. Very expensive. Got the long life bulbs from Powerbulbs as used by taxi drivers a year ago - still going strong. Light is OK . Clean glass is important watever bulbs you use.

Despite what some folk are writing, there are situations where a bit extra light and so a bit longer "throw" or "cone" of light is really helpful, my wife is a bit old and smart to be thought of liking her improved headlight output for chavish reasons. Her normal journey is on sometimes busy twisty country B roads were seeing well ahead for walkers/deer/cows/sheep/horses/badgers is seen as being sort of handy, as most of the running will be done on dipped beam. Her car is a 9N Polo and so there was no option to get Xenons like my B5 Passat, and as you age beyond 40 years your eyes really do need some extra light unfortunately.

I'd never suggest the use of illegal "offroad only use" bulbs as I think that I pay enough back into government pockets without having to add in fines.

The light that burns twice as bright burns half as long.

For incandescant bulbs it would be actually a quarter or less. :wonder:

If you read the manufacturers technical data sheets for these "super bulbs", you'll find that they are only a few percent brighter than their standard models. The +50% / + 80% is reference to an unnamed low quality bulbs (probably due to poor light distribution).

I read this up when I found the +50% no brighter than the standard OSRAM factory fit.

Our local Sainsburys garage sell headlamp bulbs at between £2.50 and £3.50. each.